Learning to Breathe
by CryingCicada
Summary: The brigade will be tested, can they cope through the struggles that are on their way. A mix of some lightheartedness and seriousness, it makes for an interesting read, rated T for violence.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N This is a fanfic, I obviously don't own Haruhi, (unfortunately) and no disrespect is meant by the posting of this fanfic, this is the only disclaimer you're gonna get, I think everyone should know that it's Nagaru Tanigawa that owns this piece of art.**

**Other than this A/N, I'll try and keep them few and far between so they don't interfere with the story. Updates may be erratic, fast when I have inspiration and little schoolwork, or painfully slow when the opposite happens. So, remember to r'n'r and enjoy the story!**

**Quick note: I'm British, so if any of you people in the big old US of A think I've made a mistake, tell me, but that may just be the way its spelt/said over here.**

It's said that the way you start your day will dictate how it goes; this is true. If you wake up with an angry looking foreman banging a pot and pan to rouse you at 4 in the morning, it will be a bad day. If you wake up at 8 with a butler or a loving parent informing you that your cereal and/or toast is downstairs waiting for you, then it'll be a fairly good day. If you wake up at 11 with a busty French maid handing you a tray of bacon and eggs and a cup of sweet tea, then your day will most likely be excellent (if not one of the best of your life). Kyon however, was woken by his little sister punching him in the stomach.

This, in itself was not an unusual occurrence; in fact, this is how Kyon starts most of his days. So, after recovering from the deadly little sister brand of martial arts, dragging himself zombie-like from his bed, and fumbling off his alarm, which had started jackhammering his ears some time after being roused from a rather pleasant dream by his little sister. Grumbling under his breath, he put on his *ahem* pristine uniform from where it had been dumped in the wardrobe the night before. Breakfast, that would be the first order of the day, Kyon's stomach reminded him rather painfully of this, although that may be the accumulated bruises from his sister's brutal wake ups.

Quietly creeping down the stairs, he jumped as his sister cheerfully yelled, "Kyon-kun, mom's gone already!" Well. That made sneaking around useless. Looking around the kitchen, Kyon pondered, was there actually anything decent to have for breakfast? His sister had had the last of the waffles yesterday, so it was either toast made in a toaster that had two modes, burnt to hell and back, or barely warm. Then again, there was always the choice of cereal. After glancing at the clock on the wall and seeing that he had to leave NOW or he was going to be late, again. Wolfing down his breakfast, grabbing his bag and careening out of the door he jumped on his bike and pedalled.

There was only one reason he was actually trying to get to school on time he reflected, Haruhi, every time he was late (even if he wasn't) he had to buy the drinks and/or meal for that days outing, his wallet was definitely feeling the pain of that, so he now always tried to get to places on time, he rarely succeeded, and on the off chance that he did get there on time, she decided not to penalize anyone. Racing down the corridor to his classroom he saw Okabe-sensei walking towards the door, he put on an extra spurt of speed and got through the door just before Okabe and slipped in to his seat in time for the class representative to tell the class to stand and bow. As he sat back down, he felt Haruhi's inquisitive gaze on the back of his neck. Slumping back in his seat, he felt her breath on his ear when she whispered; "Why the hell are you late?" he would never understand how she managed to convey a shout within a whisper. Now, just to survive the day with as little stress as possible, she'd forget the question soon enough.

This ran into unexpected complications when in his third lesson he reached into his bag for the homework (which he'd actually done for once) and sighed when his fingers closed on empty space.

"Well Kyon, no homework again?" knowing that no matter what his excuse that it wouldn't be accepted he just mutely shook his head

"Well, you'll have your punishment tomorrow, though you may not think it's much of a punishment, but it needs to be done nonetheless."

"Yes sir." Only two lessons left, just two. Thankfully, he managed to survive the last two lessons, maths, which he hated, and English, which he was actually really good at. And then he was free! At least until Haruhi grabbed hold of his tie and dragged him to the clubroom at a run. Somehow, Mikuru was already there and changed into her maid outfit, Kyon always wondered how she managed to get there so quickly and still get changed, even before the speed demon that was Haruhi. As he sank into his normal seat at the table, he nodded absently to Yuki and allowed himself to slump forward onto the table and ponder; if you looked at Kyon's days, most of them were either pondering, or doing things with the SOS Brigade.

He supposed he should be thankful to the Brigade for giving him something to fill the days other than melancholy from his time in middle school. He blinked as Mikuru placed a cup of tea in front of him and lifted his head to nod and give a grateful smile. After the obligatory blush and smile back she moved on to hand Yuki and Haruhi their drinks and put one where Koizumi sits. Speaking of Koizumi, where is he? Kyon wondered. Koizumi was in fact, on the way, he had heard nature calling and went to answer, not that we really need to know that, so don't worry about such things. Koizumi chose that moment to walk in and the Brigade was complete. Koizumi then got the Othello board out and Kyon sat fully up, ready to play.

Making his way back home, he reflected that all in all, it had been a pretty normal day, far more than usual considering Haruhi and the trouble she normally caused. Kyon had no idea how much he would come to regret those words.

After parting with Kyon at the station and watching him ride off, Haruhi sat on one of the conveniently placed benches to wait for her train. Thankfully for her boredom levels (and Koizumi's sanity) the train arrived after five minutes and, seeing as it was well after the end of school, she could actually sit down on the train; in the mornings, it was an entirely different story, the trains were packed like sardines in a can.

Fortunately, her house was only a half mile walk away from the train station and with the speed Haruhi walks at she was back home in around ten minutes, after slamming open the door, as per usual for her, and yelling to her parents that she was home, she walked over to her bedroom to do her homework (what little she had as exams were coming up soon) and to watch anime. She was called by her parents from the kitchen before she managed to get there. Looking at her parents she didn't notice anything particularly off but something felt, _strange_ about them.

"Have you been revising, your exams are soon and you need to do well." Asked her mother, struggling not to roll her eyes, she gave the obvious answer

"Of course I've been revising! What else do I have to do since you took my laptop until the exams are over?" of course, she neglected to mention the stacks of anime and manga stashed away in various hidey holes around her room. Her parents shifted at that, sharing a glance in that language used by partners and parents alike, that made a whistling sound as it hurtled over Haruhi's head.

"Well," said her father slowly, "If you place well in the exams, we can all go out for a meal wherever you like, and we can watch the baseball league final over at the stadium" Haruhi's heart dropped at that, she _hated_ the place, and the memories it brought up; after finishing pulverising her sadness into oblivion, and making sure it didn't show on her face. They were so overprotective they just might try and get her counselling again if they thought something was wrong, like that had gone so well the last time, and she did _not_ need counselling. She nodded, and put up a wide smile

"Okay, I'll make sure to do my best then!" then they let her go to her room in peace, happy in the misconception she was studying most of the time spent in there. A few hours of mindless anime later, there was a knock at the door, as she was the closest, and didn't particularly want her parents to poke their heads in and see the littered DVD cases scattered about the floor, Haruhi yelled out

"I'll get it." And opened the door, to see five rather large, generic yakuza thugs in suits, they swarmed in through the door, two with baseball bats held in their hands, and one of them, grabbed Haruhi's arm and twisted it behind her, making her cry out as he flicked open a scarily sharp knife and held it rather forcefully against her neck. She felt the man's hot, rancid breath on her ear as he whispered,

"_Scream and I'll kill you_." With an aura of menace underlying his words. Meanwhile two of the thugs with no weapons had gone and dragged her parents out of the living room, when they saw Haruhi being held with a knife they started struggling in earnest, only to be stopped by twin cracks of baseball bats hitting their jaws.

"You should have paid us back you know, then we wouldn't have to do this." Haruhi's father managed to raise his head to glare weakly at the lead thug holding Haruhi

"We almost had the money together." He said after spitting out the blood that had built up in his mouth. The thug chuckled darkly

"So sorry Suzumiya-san, you're out of time... Watch carefully Suzu-chan, you're about to learn what happens when you piss off the wrong people." And Haruhi could only watch and listen, with tears streaming down her face, as the thunking squelch of the baseball bats hitting soft flesh, over and over again, after a while, they ditched the bats and started kicking at the shaking forms on the floor. Shortly after that, the thug that had been silently holding Haruhi for all this time said

"Enough, they're dead, we've made our point to the girl." Another looked at him questioningly,

"So we're going to be leaving her here, alive?" the leader nodded, finally letting go of her numb wrist and, as she fell to the floor said

"Yes, it is to be a test of our police contacts, a relatively low-risk endeavour, considering we all took measures to safeguard against identification, but we need to see how they handle something of this kind of magnitude." Leaving a shuddering Haruhi on the floor, just staring at her parent's mutilated corpses, they picked up their weapons, and simply left.


	2. Chapter 2

She'd stayed there, slumped on the floor for what seemed like hours but was in reality only about ten minutes, just staring at their faces until she managed to move, and started to shake their shoulders, hoping they'd just been knocked out, shouting "Wake up! Wake up!" over and over. Not a peep, finally she mustered up the courage to check their pulses. Nothing. They were gone. What would she do? Where would she go? The rest of her family were dead, old age most of them, one or two of cancer, not that you need to know this, but it gives some background.

There was no orphanage in Nishinomiya, she didn't want to leave her precious SOS brigade, then she'd have lost everything and that was _not_ an option, after all, she couldn't live alone without written permission from her parents, and well, that wasn't going to happen.

Past memories flickered by her eyes as she worried what to do, arguments they'd had, she supposed she didn't generally get on well with them, hell, she barely ever saw them; but still, they loved her and they were still there for her, and she remembered when she was in elementary school after the teacher had yelled and yelled, which was scary for the six year old Haruhi, never mind that he'd been sacked at the end of the week for some unknown reason. They'd always been there, and she hadn't. Right, if she wanted to avoid being taken away, she'd have to get moving; she paused by the bodies long enough to say

"I'm sorry. I hope you find happiness in the next world." Holding her tears in, she rummaged around in her cupboards, finding her hold-all and loading it up with enough clothes for a week; she still wasn't sure what she would do, but she'd do something.

Having left earlier than normal, Haruhi got to school at seven thirty, a whole hour early and time to try and take her mind off things. After stuffing her bag full of clothes into her shoe locker, she headed towards class.

For Kyon, the day went by pretty quickly; Okabe wasn't an idiot, he knew barely anyone had revised, so he'd convinced the teachers to give the class a 'revision day' he also knew that most people would probably end up doing little more than doodle in their exercise books. Kyon had slept through most of it, having been kept up most of the previous night due to a sense of impending doom, but he was lucid enough to realise that something was badly upsetting Haruhi, so much so that she simply stared into space. The staring into space alone would normally have been no cause for concern, but coupled with the fact that her eyes were still blood-shot made it a cause for great concern, Haruhi was almost never upset, not letting anything faze her in the slightest; something was very very wrong. As Haruhi got up and mechanically gathered her things together, packed them away, and went to the clubroom seemingly on auto pilot. Kyon was about to follow suit when he heard the unfamiliar sound of his family name being called and turned round to face Okabe

"Now now, I hope you haven't forgotten your punishment have you? Well, the people playing football near the school buildings keep kicking their balls onto the roofs, truthfully, none of the teachers want the responsibility, so your punishment is just to go up to the roof and knock the balls off." An easy enough punishment, and considering that Okabe _could_ keep him back for an extra hour, it was good, but he wanted, no, needed to find out what was wrong with Haruhi so the world didn't blow up or something.

Sighing, he nodded and jogged up to the roof, as he was hunting around for balls, seeing if they'd gotten caught behind vents and such, his phone started buzzing. Shaking his head at the caller ID, he answered

"What is it Koizumi?"

"As I would hope you are aware, there is something wrong with Suzumiya-san, she's -ah- very upset at the moment, closed space is appearing nearly everywhere, which, though good for our travel costs, is NOT a good thing, find out what happened and cheer her up as much as you can, I'd appreciate the help." After Koizumi hung up rather suddenly Kyon looked at the phone in surprise, no jokes, and actually asking for help rather than basically accusing him of doing something, something was definitely up. After hurling the balls down to the grateful teens below, Kyon took off at a run towards the club room, swerving around students and shouting back an apology at a rather confused looking teacher. He beat his best time there, including the times when Haruhi had dragged him by his tie. Not even pausing long enough to knock the door he flung it open, and was greeted with a sight anything but what he'd expected; Haruhi had broken down, and was clinging to Yuki like she was the final lifeline in the middle of a storm, crying into her cardigan, Yuki's book had been knocked out of her hands when Kyon entered, Yuki looked up, and tilted her head the barest fraction of a degree. Wrestling with his emotions at what would have caused something like this, and the fact that Haruhi would probably kill him when this was all over he walked over, knelt down and tentatively put his arms around them; he felt Yuki relax slightly and also put her arms around Haruhi. At that moment Mikuru walked in apologising

"Hello everyone, sorry I'm late but we were kept back because…" and trailed off as she saw Kyon, Haruhi and Yuki; looking at her pleadingly Kyon mouthed "Help please." So Mikuru was pulled into the group hug, Kyon didn't know how long they stayed like that, but it was long enough for his lower legs to start complaining; when Haruhi sniffled and went to stand up.

"I know I haven't, um, been the best at showing this, but we're a team right? And friends?" Of course, in this kind of situation, if you have a heart, the only answer is "Of course!" so Haruhi started explaining all that had happened, she explained how apparently her parents had gotten into debt with some local yakuza and hadn't been able to pay it off; then, how she'd been forced to watch as they beat her parents to death and then finally:

"I didn't want to leave the SOS Brigade, so I packed up some clothes and I came here, I -um- didn't know where I'd go after today though." Kyon of course saw the immediate solution and said to Yuki and Mikuru

"Do either of you have spare room at your places?" Mikuru's face lit up bright red as she shook her head and stammered

"N-no, I've only got a studio flat." Yuki however gave a slow nod.

"Can Haruhi stay there?" asked Kyon, "will you look after her?"

"Yes" was the monosyllabic response, but it was enough to put Haruhi at ease and make her think that maybe things won't turn out so bad after all.

After watching the other three go their separate ways, Kyon turned towards the station and sighed as he saw a sleek, black taxi pull up in front of him.

As he settled into the seat and nodded to Arakawa, receiving an answering nod in return Koizumi started speaking

"I have two questions for you, the first, what on earth happened to get Suzumiya-san so upset? And the second, what did you do to stop it? Most of the closed space has vanished, there is still a large amount, but it is no longer critical." Koizumi had his rather irritating fake smile back on, the one that made Kyon want to punch him.

"First," he said, with barely contained annoyance "you should ask her yourself; and second, what anybody would have done, maybe what you should have done if you're so concerned about her mental state!" for the briefest part of a second, Koizumi looked like he'd been slapped, before he got his facade back up, although it looked somehow, falser, and he managed a chuckle and said

"Perhaps you're right Kyon-kun." Rolling his eyes, Kyon got out of the car as it stopped at the station (it always baffled him how Arakawa managed to time his arrivals so well) as the car drove away, Kyon wondered why Koizumi acted like that, he said it was to keep Haruhi happy, but surely she can't just want a blind yes-man, doesn't she want someone who is actually personable and that you can talk to without being annoyed by the ever present smile?

Pondering what would happen next to the SOS Brigade, Kyon made his way home to an irate mother berating him for being late and the amount of homework he had missed, more of the same really, not that it mattered anymore; watching Haruhi hurting, that was no fun at all, and he swore to himself there and then that somehow, the SOS Brigade would manage and they'd be happy again. It was one of his few moments of vehemence and he wouldn't accept a compromise, they would be happy, one way or another, they still had each other after all.

**A/N Review please people, I'd like to know what people like and don't; the next update probably won't be quite so fast, so apologies for that.**


	3. Chapter 3

Kyon had managed to avoid his sister's wrath that morning, although that may have been due to a strange feeling that woke him in the middle of the night and absolutely refusing to let him sleep that night. Nevertheless, he had a certain hopeful air about him; Haruhi had seen them as friends and people that could help; now they only had to prove that they could.

At this particular moment in time, Kyon was half way up the hellish hiking course that was the dreaded hill. Seeing as Haruhi was, for obvious reasons, not coming that way to school anymore, Kyon was now talking to Taniguchi, if he was completely honest with himself, he wasn't really listening to whatever he was rambling about, something about Kunikida he thought; when he jumped because of Taniguchi exclaiming

"Hey! Isn't that Suzumiya-san and Nagato-san? I wonder what they're doing walking together this morning, doesn't Haruhi normally walk with you anyway?"

"Drop it Taniguchi." Was the half-hearted response.

Taniguchi was in full-blown perv mode now "Don't you want to know what's going on between them? They could be…" then trailed off at the dark look that Kyon was sending him.

The beginning of class seemed fairly normal, cheerful chatter permeated the room, the only abnormality was Haruhi, she was quiet and looked like she was deep in thought; she didn't look quite as depressed as she did yesterday at least, that was something. They survived class pretty well, the teacher and students seeming to read the mood and stayed away, even Taniguchi, though that was more likely due to Kunikida's restraining reminder of how it would probably be a bad idea to push Kyon any further after the comments this morning. Soon enough classes were over, and they headed to the clubroom, it was strange, Kyon reflected, they always went there, even in times of crisis, it was their safe haven. Haruhi went to her normal seat behind the computer before looking in surprise at Koizumi; he was barely ever there before her and after looking him over, her eyebrows rose even further as she asked.

"What happened to you? You look like a wreck." Koizumi shifted slightly and winced as his muscles twinged at the movement.

"My part time job is having a slight crisis at the moment," here his eyes shifted to Kyon who straightened in his seat "We've contained the majority of the problem and it'll hold, but we're having to run twenty-four hour shifts for a while." Kyon was, obviously, relieved at this piece of news but Koizumi's smile was a pained mockery of its usual unflappability.

"I'm not so distracted that I can't take care of my sub-ordinates, you are my responsibility after all! Go home, get some rest, you're no use like this!"

His smile turned genuine and thankful for a moment before he nodded and rather gingerly got up and the full extent of his injuries were finally able to be seen; he was swaying slightly on his feet, eyes half lidded, he had a nasty cut above his left eye, there were dark rings under both his eyes. As he left the clubroom, he limped, favouring his right leg. After he left, Haruhi, rather hesitantly, which was odd for her, cleared her throat.

"We might need to make plans, the police will probably have found out by now, they'll know where I go to school, and probably where all of you live, what'll we do," here she paused, "I really don't want to leave you guys." She trailed off slightly at the end, and her face felt warm, but you could see the sincerity in her eyes. Here Yuki shocked (or at least mildly surprised) everyone by speaking.

"Do not worry, it will be likely that the police will not follow through on this." Kyon made a slight noise of understanding before carrying on.

"Of course, it would make them look really bad, a murder happening within five minutes drive of their station, also, it'd probably get their funding cut and draw attention they don't want from the NPA." Haruhi looked a little lost for words at that, giving Kyon a strange look that he couldn't glean any meaning at all from and Yuki gave a very slight nod.

"Um…" Mikuru said "I think we should all do something together," before seeming to realise that everyone was staring at her, and her face lit up like a flare and she hurriedly added "t-that is to say, um… If y-you all wanted to?" Haruhi looked puzzled at this for a few seconds then nodded.

"Yeah, we should. Maybe just relax somewhere; we'll have to wait 'till the day after tomorrow if Koizumi's still working his twenty-four hour shifts. Kyon, can you plan it?" Kyon nodded, something relaxing, to take all their minds of things, yeah, he could do that. The atmosphere in the clubroom was much more relaxed after that, mostly sitting in companionable silence until Haruhi got too restless and decided that they had to do something, it was obvious she was still upset, after all, her parents _had_ just died after all, but she was still trying to act normally, despite the flashes of their mangled corpses every so often but it was getting difficult so she wanted something to distract her. She walked over to the cupboard where all of the board games were; no one was entirely sure where most of them actually came from. After picking up Othello she brought it over and said

"Who wants to play, I've got to do something, or I'm gonna go insane!" Mikuru and Kyon both replied at exactly the same time with an

"I'll play." And Yuki said, again, at the same time

"I will also play." They all looked strangely at each other, apart from Yuki that is, she just stared in the same way she normally did, until Kyon suggested

"So we play in teams of two?" and so, the two teams were chosen by the now traditional toothpick drawing, Kyon and Yuki both drew coloured toothpicks, which left Haruhi and Mikuru with the plain ones. Thus, the majority of the SOS-brigade was embroiled in a fight to the death; well, to win a game of Othello. Eventually, Haruhi's team won due to Mikuru being surprisingly skilled at the game. About five minutes before they finished the game, Kyon got a text from Koizumi saying

"_Thanks, things have calmed down a lot, I'm not sure what you're doing, but keep doing it, you're probably the only one that can help the situation get better."_ Correctly guessing the he had worded it like that so if Haruhi saw it she wouldn't be so suspicious, he smiled slightly before deleting it, no point in tempting fate after all.

While the rest were playing Othello, Koizumi was stood at a loss with the situation; this closed space was strange, first, there was only one area where they could enter or exit, almost like a door, second, even people with nothing extraordinary about them at all seemed uncomfortable by the entrance, and tried to avoid it, third, it was raining, it was a glorious sunny day outside, but in closed space, it was raining, closed space normally didn't even have a sky, just a blank grey, so now with it raining, it was strange, and fourth, the celestials were purple, purple! Why on earth were they purple? It made no sense whatsoever, at least not that Koizumi could think of. After being yelled at by one of his colleagues as she flew past he realised that he was staring in to space and just getting soaked so he shook his head to clear the cobwebs a little and joined his comrades in taking down the celestials, fortunately, these ones didn't put up much of a fight so soon enough the last of them had been defeated. As none of them were quite sure how this closed space would behave they all were on the ground, tensed up waiting for something, fifteen seconds passed, and instead of slowly breaking apart, it was simply there the one-second and not the next. Unfortunately, one of the espers was in the middle of the road, and looked to see a truck bearing down on him, thankfully, fighting the celestials had given him good reflexes so he was able to barely jump out of the way. So, five strange things about this closed space, Koizumi was told by the areas commander that he was in too bad a shape to help so he sent him home. As he limped towards the waiting taxi, he shook his head, thinking for possibly the first time he could really do with getting drunk before catching himself, he'd be no use to anyone that way.

Things were going surprisingly well for the brigade; one could only hope that they lasted. Unfortunately for them, good times were not to last, factions were plotting and planning, who knew what they'd do?

**A/N hope you all enjoy this, it was like writing through concrete; PLEASE review, I know people are reading it but I don't know what they think**


	4. Chapter 4

Satoru Anenokoji, police chief for four years was waiting for a response from his superiors. He'd sent the message a little over an hour ago. The response would dictate how much more information they could gather. Finally, the response came through, and Anenokoji found his mouth inadvertently twisting into a malicious smile, they'd get _lots_ of new data from this. No one to talk to tended to make emotions build up, at least that's what their observations said, past observations suggested that the effects were dictated by her subconscious and her emotions. They might even finally find how to manipulate their own data and be able to auto evolve. The IDSE really had thought over every eventuality they had interfaces placed highly in nearly every organisation in Japan, and a few worldwide. Gone was the time for merely observing, it was time to provoke a response. _The yakuza member that's hiding in the police force should be here soon._ Thought Satoru to himself. And, right on cue, the mole knocked the door to his office.

"Come in." said Satoru. The door opened slowly and a man edged in, he was short, barely five foot, he had flat brown hair and was as thin as a rake, he was the kind of person you forgot immediately after seeing. His eyes were flitting around frantically and he looked like he was about to throw up from nervousness. "What is it?"

The man hesitantly cleared his throat and said, "I am Akara Fukatsu." after glancing side to side yet again; he continued, "Could I have your word, that this can stay hidden?"

Satoru chuckled, he couldn't feel emotions like these primitive beings, but he had learnt how to use the cues to get his way. "Of course Akara-kun, nothing said will leave this office, you have my word."

"Thank you; a few years ago, I was approached by the Ichiwa-kai, I believe you would know of them yes?" he waited for the answering nod before carrying on, "What we did, it was generally all pretty low-key, some petty violence and thieving, maybe the odd extortion. We didn't touch murder, however, there is a new boss, and he wants to bring us out from obscurity. He chose to test me, the adult Suzumiyas were killed due to their debts to us. The test is to keep the police uninvolved, I want out, but I've got no illusions, if I run, they'll kill me, if I fail, they'll kill me; so I'm asking, no, begging you, help me!" His voice had risen in desperation towards the end, before he seemed to deflate, barely looking at his chief. Until, rather suddenly, the chief of police let out a booming laugh and Akara's head whipped up to stare at him.

"Considering what I now know, it would be rather foolish to let what I'm about to tell you reach another being's ears." Akara nodded frantically "this has actually helped, I would hope you would be aware that the government are looking for any excuse whatsoever to cut funding to anything. Now, how do you think we would look if we were to admit there was a killing, especially one within five minutes drive? We'd loose our funding; also, we'd have those bastards from the NPA watching our every move like hawks for a while, we can_ not _afford this to happen. We would be the laughing stock of the country. Don't you worry, I do not intend for this to ever see the light of day; unfortunately, for you that is, that means absolutely no one else can know of it." Akara's mouth opened in a silent scream of torment as blood flowed from his eyes, ears and mouth, before his body disappeared, to be found the next morning in Aokigahara, appearing as if he had simply overdosed on drugs. The interface designated 'Satoru' briefly pondered why he had killed the human before it became clear. He was a threat to the secrecy of the subject's parent's deaths, if the plan went wrong, an undesirable faction would gain power, and his existence would be under threat, he wouldn't make the same mistake as others had before him.

Of course Satoru had already finished his manipulations of the data. He simply needed to check that everything had gone as planned. The locked door not slowing him down, he strode through, inspecting every inch of the house. It was a fairly small house; it only had one floor, two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room. Almost exactly the same as every other house on the street. There were now no signs whatsoever of the beating that had taken place, in fact, there were no signs that anybody had lived there at all. There was a sale sign in front of the house, and, so nobody got suspicious, he'd arranged for the surrounding families to all get transfers, and other families to transfer in. It was the perfect cover up. All files related to the subject's parents had been mysteriously… misplaced. The subject's school records, and all other records in fact, read that her father had died four months into her pregnancy, and her mother had died in childbirth. It said that now she was sixteen she had been granted permission to live alone, of course, _she_ didn't know that, she'd think she had nowhere to go. Satoru felt his mouth twist into his malicious smile again, and thought that it may have been a bad idea to teach himself the emotional cues, before dismissing it, it didn't affect his ability to do anything after all. New data was essentially guaranteed, the interface directly observing the subject just had to do its job. Satoru cared very little for the details; he just did his job, cleaning up after things that had gone wrong in the IDSEs experiments. He would carry out his orders, and dispose of anyone that got in his way.

In a fold of space near the outer edge of the galaxy, messages were sent and understood by the upper echelons of the IDSE. They were, talking wasn't quite the right word, but it's the closest in human language, about Haruhi Suzumiya, something had escaped their calculations of future events, and it wasn't directly due to the unstable element that had been designated 'Kyon' by the local population. Instead, and this was the real shocker, it was because of one of their own interfaces, the one that had named itself Yuki Nagato.

"Something has to be done." Came the impression from one part of the entity. Another aspect said.

"Yes, but we cannot disregard the threat made by the human, he will make the subject aware and she will make a new universe and destroy this, even if it was not destroyed, there is no guarantee that there will be enough data gathered for auto evolution. The entire project will have been pointless, and there will not be another chance. We therefore cannot get rid of it." A seldom heard from facet made its presence know by a quick burst of junk data before making its idea heard.

"It would appear that the only thing that can be done is to bring the interface here."

"Unfortunately, it is not possible here, the flaws in the interface creation have not been fixed yet."

"The problem has plagued us for years, but if the lower entities are not told of it, we will always have a steady supply. Make a physical space, then bring it here." Without fanfare or the use of high speed chants, a space was created; it simply appeared as an expanse of white, disappearing into nothingness, just a white plain with a black emptiness above it, and the white gave off a soft glow. Yuki Nagato appeared in the middle of this space. A voice came from the air, sounding from all directions at once, it sounded of many voices layered over each other, old voices, young, male and female, all combining to give a rather disconcerting effect overall.

"Interface, are you aware of why you are here?"

"No."

"You have gone beyond your bounds, you stepped beyond merely observing and have interfered with data collection, not only has your interference made you more than an observer, it has decreased the amount of data created."

"…"

"This cannot go without consequence. You are no longer a part of the Integrated Data Sentience Entity, you no longer have our protection or access to our resources. Your data link will be reduced so only the bare minimum data required to keep you functioning will reach along it. Now go." As she started fading back to where she had come from, Yuki said only one thing.

"Thank you."

**A/N Thanks for reading again guys, this'll be the last time I ask for reviews, but think of it from us writer's point of view, I know that as of now, 113 people have read this, I DON'T know however, what you liked or didn't or even **_**if**_** you liked it**. **So please, drop me a line, what did you like/dislike, hell, I don't even care if it's a string of random profanity, just so long as it's a review**


	5. Chapter 5

Haruhi woke with a start, head swivelling side to side as she stared around the unfamiliar room, but not being able to see much; there was nothing there to see. A massive empty room, with no doors, what the hell was going on? How had she got in if there were no doors? None of it made any sense. Unless.

"Is, is this a dream?" the walls flared with a strange light that started shifting colours quickly, going between yellow, blue, red, grey, pink and white over and over again. "So, I guess this is a dream… now how the hell do I wake up?" A soft voice spoke up from behind her.

"Well well, it's been a while since somebody came here, even longer since one got their fortune told." Haruhi whirled around to see a little girl; she was about as tall as up to Haruhi's knees. Had blond hair and piercing blue eyes, however, the effect was ruined somewhat by her being dressed in a shirt that was way too big for her along with trousers that would have made her trip if she'd moved. "No one ever remembers me or their fortune though." She continued rather sadly. Taken aback Haruhi searched for something to say, finally settling on.

"Who are you?" the girl looked rather sadly at her for a second before answering.

"I am Mirai, it's time for you to go now, it's a shame you won't remember me, goodbye." It was creepy, Haruhi reflected, as the world seemed to blur and fade in front of her, to hear a little girl speak like that, just before she woke for real, she could have sworn she heard "goodbye, sister." Whispered in a voice that sounded like it was barely keeping from crying.

Shaking her head to clear it of a half remembered dream of colours swirling around her, she looked around her new room, it was fairly plain at the moment, cream coloured walls, a desk and a wardrobe, that was about it, apart from the futon that was currently in the middle of the floor. Haruhi shuffled, zombie like, still cocooned in her blanket, it was so warm, even if it shouldn't be cold outside, it was one of those days; after a week of glorious sunshine, it was raining, like one wave being dumped out of the sky. Of course, none of this occurred to Haruhi, she was just comfortable in the blanket, and honestly too asleep to think properly. After going over to the kitchen door, she stepped through and stopped dead, how was she going to make breakfast with her being so wrapped up? Still half asleep, so no one will ever know the secret to how she managed to make cereal and carry it to the table in the other room without getting her arms cold, unfortunately, she'd woken up fully by then and had to wriggle out to eat her breakfast. As she woke up, she looked around wondering where Yuki was, she was normally sitting at the table, watching; Yuki was always watching, she wondered why. Whenever the SOS brigade had had overnight events, she always remembered Yuki being the last to go to sleep, and she'd never needed to be woken up, and that was something if you looked at how early Haruhi woke normally; so it was a surprise to see Yuki come out of her bedroom with her hair in a mess and pajamas on, it just didn't fit.

Now that the weather matched her mood, she didn't particularly want to be so gloomy, she wanted to have some fun and forget about things for a while. "Hey, Yuki-chan? Can the others come over here and do something?"

"That is fine."

"Hmmm, just we have to decide what to do now, do you have any ideas Yuki-chan?" Yuki started to say no before pausing, making Haruhi lean forward slightly in anticipation.

"Playing The Day of Sagittarius III was… enjoyable."

"We could do that! You brought the laptops home when we asked you to fix them from running so slowly, right?" Yuki's response was her trademarked infinitesimal nod. "Good, so we can get everyone over here and do something to avoid all the gloom."

Kyon sighed as he rode around a corner, slipping in the rain, of course he was happy enough to help Haruhi be happy, especially when there was very little likelihood of him becoming scarred for life, but still, he'd appreciate not getting soaked to the skin. It was strange to hear Haruhi asking something, even more so when her voice was sounding so shy, so when she'd asked

"Hey Kyon, could you come over to Yuki's, we're going to play Day of Sagittarius if that's alright?" even stranger still to hear her ask for her opinion, so of course he said.

"Alright, I should be there in about half an hour." After exactly half an hour, he arrived in front of the doors to the apartment building having locked his bike into the 'bike parking place' which he'd never bothered to learn the proper name of. Mercifully, the doors opened as he was about to dial Yuki's room number, so instead of standing outside waiting to be let in, he walked up to her apartment, dripping a trail of water all the way. When he got there, he found Haruhi and Yuki perfectly dry, which was obvious, but Koizumi and Mikuru being the same was not. The first thing to do though, would be to get a towel so he didn't keep dripping on Yuki's floor, just remembering, he slipped his shoes off before asking, trying to keep his shivering under control and rubbing his arms.

"Can I get a towel or something please?" after wrapping himself in the towel that Yuki had fetched from somewhere out of sight, he sat down and sipped at the tea that Mikuru had made, after all, it wouldn't be an SOS Brigade event without heavenly tea made by their mascot would it? Then he asked Koizumi,

"How in the nine levels of hell did you get here without getting soaked, it's chucking it down!" he only barely managed to avoid letting the innocent little Mikuru hear him swearing.

"Well," said Koizumi with a small laugh "I just caught a taxi here, they have a side entrance that has a sheltered walkway, and I just asked the driver to pick up Asahina-san as well." Glaring slightly, and managing to avoid yelling _"And you couldn't have picked me up why?"_ although the thought was definitely going 'round his mind, Kyon hated being wet with rain, it made his clothes stick to him, and it was really annoying when his hair dangled just above his eyes, not enough to make seeing difficult, only enough to distract and irk him. Settling back where he was sitting, he asked.

"So what are we going to do while I dry off, 'cause I'm pretty sure I'll fry whichever laptop I touch like this."

"Don't be a baby Kyon!" replied Haruhi, already seeming much more like her old self, "It'll be fine."

"Fine." He mumbled with a sigh, reaching toward the laptop in front of him and pulling his hand back sharply when he got a shock off of the metal case, raising an eyebrow challengingly at Haruhi he thought he heard her mumble something along the lines of 'okay, maybe not.' Before pointing out the as-yet unnoticed flaw in Haruhi's plan "You seem to have forgotten something though." Chuckling to himself as Haruhi cocked her head to one side "There are four computers, but five of us. So I'll stay here and dry off, Nagato can take my place and we could probably take it in turns if that's alright with her?" directing the last part towards Yuki.

"Yes."

Kyon felt somewhat nostalgic as he watched Haruhi set the game up, apparently the computer club had, with Yuki's help, made a highly adaptable AI, it was kind of scary when you thought about it, the amount of chaos that would be caused if Yuki became a virus maker, shivering slightly at the though resulted in a happy coincidence though, Kyon got some always welcome attention from Mikuru, who had looked up with a wide smile after finally getting her ships to behave properly and go where they were supposed to go.

"Are you too cold Kyon-kun?" and before he'd had the chance to reply, Mikuru had managed to leave her seat, pick up her jacket from where it was hanging and put it on his shoulders, of course, being, as Haruhi would call it 'the great moe mascot, she tripped at the last moment and Kyon found himself with a lapful of Mikuru, not that he was complaining of course, but he felt his face grow slightly warm, however it was nothing to the cherry red face that Mikuru was now sporting as she sprung back up and fled to her seat stammering apologies as she went. Haruhi was now laughing outright at the look on her face; Koizumi was chuckling without seeming fake and even Yuki seemed amused. After Mikuru had calmed down enough, the game began properly, with Haruhi slipping easily into her role as leader, leading her loyal subjects forward into battle. Koizumi had surrounded Haruhi half his fleet as a last ditch defence just in case the dreaded Garvel (which was what the computer research society had named the AI enemy) got through; Yuki had used her traditional tactic of splitting her ships up, although not as much as when they played the computer club. Haruhi had moved everyone of her ships apart from the boss ship, trusting Koizumi with its safety, to launch a brutal full on assault at the enemy. Mikuru was taking a surprisingly aggressive role, sending them forward on any unsuspecting enemy that got through Haruhi's assault, her tongue poking out slightly in concentration. Kyon had watched it all unfold from behind Yuki's shoulder and clapped slowly after the last Garvel faded off the screen.

"Now, you and Yuki control half of that fleet each." Said Haruhi.

"Wait, you can do that?" asked Kyon.

"Of course, just use the other half of the keyboard."

"Well, if I'd known that, I would have played last time as well." He mumbled, before remembering the shock, maybe that would have been a bad idea, and so they played again, thrashing the AI soundly.

Yuki did not know how long the IDSE would wait before making a move, she didn't even know if they would make a move, or if they'd be content with what they had, it was unlikely, they always wanted more. All Yuki could do would be to protect the ones close to her as best she could, was this what humans called friendship; helping without a real reason? It was a good feeling. She would have to tell the one known as Kyon of what had happened, he would be able to include Haruhi in his calculations, something she herself could not do with any ease.

**A/N WOOO, a new chapter, and I have no idea where most of this came from, I think I may just be channelling it for some spirit; anyway, thanks to those who reviewed, and, to "Guy with questions" I obviously can't answer all of them 'cause that'd spoil the story, but, I'm going with Koizumi's angle that she won't do things that should be impossible that she can see, she does not believe that thugs can just conveniently drop dead in front of her when they are about to attack. I would have elaborated the Othello game but I actually have no idea how to play. I tried to give Mikuru some more screen/page time in this one, I hope I did well, thanks :)**


	6. Chapter 6

Walking to school, Kyon felt a shiver of fear travel up his spine, looking around, he couldn't spot anything out of place, there was Kunikida ahead, without Taniguchi for some reason that Kyon couldn't be bothered to figure out, and all around were the groups of nameless students he saw every day on his way to school. So why the fear, he saw them every day, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary, so why did it feel as if there was a cold knife in his back? Shaking off the feeling, he wondered yet again, why they couldn't install an elevator or something, this hill was going to kill him sooner or later if it carried on, finally he reached the top, out of breath and wishing he could just fall back into bed and go to sleep. So he trudged his way to school, missing the flash of hair as someone darted behind a corner to hide, if he had seen it, he would have seen the reason for his strange fear.

Before he managed to reach the classroom and manage to sleep, ahem, learn; his tie was grabbed by Haruhi and he was whirled round to sleepily stare at her with an eyebrow raised in question.

"Clubroom, after school, don't be late Kyon!" That made him smile; it had been a while since Haruhi had been so upbeat, it was a pleasant change; she had her old air of plotting something about her as well, but it was different… less mischievous somehow, now he just had to deal with the challenges of the average school day, namely, staying awake enough so he didn't get into too much trouble. His hand froze in his shoe locker, not another one? Who was it off this time? Sighing to himself and unfolding the note, he found two simple words, in vaguely familiar handwriting

"Be careful."

Kyon stood there for a minute, just staring at the note, he had no idea who it was off, he was _sure_ he'd seen the writing before; he just couldn't figure out where. Throughout the day, he was distracted by the note in his pocket, listening with half an ear to the lessons as he tried to puzzle out who it was, and why they were telling him to be careful.

After the end of classes he looked around to find Haruhi already gone, she could've waited, but in all honesty, he should be grateful he wasn't dragged by his tie again. When he reached the clubroom, he barely remembered to knock, but he was glad he did, because when he knocked, he heard.

"Umm, j-just a minute." So, Mikuru was changing into her maid outfit again, today was shaping up to be a good day, apart from the freaky not and such, Kyon would have to remember to ask Yuki, she generally knew what was going on. When he was given the all clear, the door opened to the usual sight of Haruhi at the computer, Mikuru making tea and Yuki reading, what wasn't quite normal was there was a printer underneath the desk churning out sheets of paper with text that he couldn't read from the door.

"Okay Haruhi, who'd you steal the printer off?" instead of answering, she just pointed at the cupboards, "Really, how stuff do we have in there, how does it all fit with the doors closed, it looks like it's all about to fall out!" he said after looking in the cupboards, there was all sorts of random crap in there, fabric, games, and assorted bits and pieces for computers.

"The computer club dumped a lot of their crap in here before we moved in, apparently, they didn't have the space, well, finders keepers." He tried to move to get a look at the papers, but they were snatched from in front of him and had hit him on the top of his head before he could blink "Nuh uh, it's a surprise for when Koizumi gets here. In an attempt to start a conversation, or at least pass the time a little, Kyon asked Yuki.

"What're you reading?" Not expecting much of an answer he was shocked when she lifted the book to show the cover for his inspection and said.

"The Book Thief, I thought it was fitting." Kyon could only stare, mouth hanging slightly open, Yuki never said what she was reading before, just showed him the cover, and she made a _joke_, jokes and Yuki didn't seem to fit into the same sentence. He had no idea how long he'd sat staring before he was brought back to the present by a hard punch to his arm, courtesy of Haruhi.

"Stop staring like a pervert Kyon!"

His response was a mumbled "You always seem like so much more of a perv than me." Before carrying on louder before she worked out what he'd said and hit him again "So why're you so cheerful now?"

"Well, I don't think there's any point in grieving lots is there?" Kyon raised a sceptical eyebrow and she flushed slightly and tried to avoid his gaze "W-well, they're gone now, and if I remember how they died and all, then I won't be able to live, so I'm not gonna think of it as dying, just going away for a while, I'll see them again some day, I know it, and they wouldn't want me to be sad, they' want me to live, and make sure I got good grades." She said, smiling with suspiciously bright eyes. Kyon nodded, and, at that moment the door opened again to reveal Koizumi; from his point of view, Haruhi was staring slightly past Kyon with a blush on her face, and Kyon was smiling, of course being Koizumi he just _had_ to comment.

"Heh, am I interrupting something, should I come back later perhaps?" Kyon's response was dripping with sarcasm.

"Interrupting what? The club meeting?" and Haruhi's was to ignore it, turn, head back to the desk, pick up her stack of paper and wave it.

"Alright, listen up! This is my special writing, it's like a special code." She waved everyone over to the table and put one of the sheets in front of each of them with a flourish. "All of you read this, it'll tell you how to read it, after all who knows when secret codes will come in handy?" Shrugging, and wondering what it was building up to, Kyon picked up the sheet and started to read.

"__Hoshi_ no _Kaku _ is a way of writing with different symbols, if they don't know how they work, they can't read it can they? Basically, you draw a spiral, how far up is the first part of the sound, and across is the second, the little stars are the sound altering things one on its own is ten ten, two is the circle thing which I can never remember the name of. No kanji make it even better! You might not be sure which word they mean so the person who's reading it will have to know what it's about to guess."_

"Hey Haruhi, who's 'they'?" asked Kyon.

"I'm not sure yet, but there's bound to be someone, I'm just planning ahead." Only to be brushed off with a vague answer. Mikuru moved suddenly in her seat and flushed when everyone, bar a certain interface, who had her head cocked ever so slightly at the paper in her hands, stared at her.

"U-um, it's nothing, m-my leg just fell asleep." Inwardly, she was frantic, something had happened that had never happened before to her, the routine update her TPDD sent to the future had been blocked, which had set of an error beep that only she could her, which had in turn, made her jump. She hadn't thought anything could block the messages, her superiors had said that they were sent through something to do with quantum entanglement and should never be stopped, truthfully, she had never understood the full explanation given, Yuki was probably the only person she knew who probably could have and preferred to think it 'just worked'. Suddenly, a thought dawned on her, if Yuki could understand it, she could probably stop it, she should ask her why, but she always seemed so scary to her. Maybe she could ask Kyon to ask for her, but what if he said no? She'd never know unless she asked, so she would, as soon as she managed to work up the courage that is.

After a while of Haruhi testing them until they could nearly read them as fast as normal writing, it was time to go, Koizumi left straight after saying goodbye, Kyon went to leave to let Mikuru get changed back into her school uniform but was stopped by an unexpected hand on his sleeve, Yuki's.

"Meet me in the park at nine tonight." She said in a barely audible voice so Haruhi didn't hear, nodding slightly, Kyon carried on out of the door towards the shoe lockers while Yuki waited for Mikuru to leave so Haruhi could lock the door and they could go home.

Walking home, Kyon felt like he was being followed, he couldn't see anyone around but he still couldn't shake the feeling. He thought he heard someone say.

"I'm sorry Kyon-kun, be careful." In a sad voice, but they couldn't have right? After all, there was no one around?

**A/N Alright, so, eventually, we have another chapter, I wish writers block was a living thing so I could kill it, but it isn't so… right, 'kaku no hoshi' **_**should**_** (if I got my translation right) mean star writing, it sounded cooler. Turns out I didn't get my translation right, and it should have been __Hoshi_ no _Kaku__ thanks to to the kind reviewer who goes by That Kid () that pointed that out (I've wanted to say something like that for SO long :) So tell me what you think and see if you can guess the identity of the person who is clearly **_**not**_** following Kyon :-)**

'**till next time.**


	7. Chapter 7

Yuki sat waiting outside, sitting on a cold metal bench in the park, Kyon would be there soon, and she had to make sure she wasn't misunderstood. Three minutes later, Kyon skidded round the corner into view, breathing heavily, he'd managed to get held up by his sister who'd insisted that Kyon played with her for a while, sure if he hadn't she would have complained to his parents, who would have told him to stop being selfish and play with her for a bit, but this was just stupid, how she'd managed to get him trapped in a two hour game of go fish, it was just ridiculous, he'd managed to skilfully lose enough games that she wouldn't complain to their parents. He pulled to a stop next to the bench that Yuki was sitting on and sat down next to her, barely keeping from swearing at the sudden cold. He took the cup of tea that Yuki held in front of him, wondering where it had came from until he saw a thermos poking out of a bag of groceries, he turned to ask why she had them but was answered before he could even ask the question.

"Haruhi Suzumiya was informed I was buying groceries." Which explained that, but not what Yuki wanted to talk to him about, he took a sip, it wasn't as good as Mikuru's tea he thought, but it was welcome anyway, it was cold for a midsummer night.

"So, what's up?" he asked, warming his hands around the cup.

"Factions regarding Haruhi Suzumiya have changed their behaviour."

"What? How?"

"The integrated data sentience entity has decided I endangered their goal, I have been denied access and dismissed by them."

"Dammit, I warned them! I…" he said before trailing off, looking at her properly, "Wait, is this good or bad." Yuki sat silent for a moment.

"I am… unsure." Kyon repressed the sudden urge to bring his hand up to his face and say something sarcastic, it wouldn't really help.

"What do you mean?"

"I no longer know what plans they have, it is unlikely that the IDSE will allow her to no longer have any influence from themselves."

"But…" asked Kyon, wondering if there was anymore she had to say.

"I would prefer things to remain as they are now."

"So we just see what happens right?"

"Yes." Seeing as the conversation was pretty much over, Kyon asked

"So do you want help carrying that back?" expecting her usual answer of 'It's fine.' She was about to say that, until her eyes sharpened slightly, as if she'd spotted something, and she nodded. Surprised, he shrugged and slipped the bag onto his handlebars so he could move his bike as well, and followed Yuki back towards her apartment.

As they entered the apartment, Haruhi turned around and started to say "Welcome back Yuki-chan." Before trailing off and asking "What's Kyon doing here?"

"I met him on the way back and he offered to carry the food." Yuki replied with Kyon nodding once, asking where to put the shopping and was waved towards the kitchen where he put the bag on a clear space of the work surface. Jumping as his phone rang, he fished it out of his pocket and answered it without looking at the caller id.

"Kyon! Where are you?"

"Huh, mom? I'm at a friends why?" he answered, praying that she didn't ask who, he'd get a talk about responsibility if she thought she was alone with a girl, and his dad wouldn't stop teasing him, he shivered at the thought of how much worse it would be if they found out it was two girls, thankfully, his prayers were answered.

"Well, ask them if you can stay, I'd rather you didn't come home in this."

"What do you mean this… oh." He said as it started raining heavily.

"Yes, your sister's at one of her friend's houses, so we don't really mind." And she hung up. He stuck his head outside the door and said "Do either of you mind me staying here tonight, it's raining, I've got no coat, and I _really_ don't want to walk in on my parents taking advantage of me and my sister being out." He finished, shuddering. Haruhi snorted and nodded, before looking at Yuki, who also nodded

"I'll go get a futon ready." Said Haruhi as she walked into another room. As the door closed, all the sounds from outside the room, the cars outside, the creaking of the floor above, all faded away.

"Huh, what is it?" asked Kyon, looking at Yuki, who just stared slightly past his shoulder. Instead of answering, she said

"Show yourself." Looking around, Kyon couldn't see anyone or anything out of place or abnormal in the apartment, apart from the manga Haruhi had been reading before they'd come in. Then he heard a sigh, and a scarily familiar voice saying

"So you found me, not surprising Nagato-san, you always were perceptive." Space seeming to bend as a body that hadn't been there before twisted out of nothingness. Kyon's brain ground to a halt, standing in front of him, was Ryouko Asakura, and she was holding that all-too-familiar combat knife, Kyon felt fear twist in his stomach, and the same feeling as he'd gotten the day before. "I'm sorry Kyon-kun, I still don't understand your concept of death, but I'm not bored now, things are happening, and I don't need to kill you to see what data Suzumiya-san will create. However, I have no choice, I have been ordered, I cannot disobey my orders, please forgive me." And she launched herself towards Kyon across what was now a much longer room, knife held out, ready to slide into his heart, Yuki had started moving at the same time, ready to intercept it, just as before, however, something was different this time, Haruhi was around, and you never underestimate the possibility of surprising things happening when she's around. The door opened, Kyon had no idea how, hadn't Ryouko sealed the space again? Haruhi stood in the door, for less than a second, taking in everything, from Ryouko and Yuki being in mid air to Kyon standing staring at the knife, before yelling

"STOP!" and to Kyon's immense surprise, they did, in mid air. Haruhi stared for a second in disbelief before marching up to Ryouko, who had now fallen from the air along with Yuki, grabbing the knife and started to yell at her. "What the hell do you think you're doing! Knives hurt, they kill people you idiot! You don't go waving them around in people's houses! Speaking of, what on earth are you doing here? When did you get back from Canada? And how the _hell_ were you _flying_" only just remembering to tack on the last question at the end. Kyon, at that moment, was swearing colourfully in his head, wondering just how they were going to explain this one away, or if they could; Yuki didn't generally seem good with lies, he had no idea what to tell her, but Koizumi was always smug as fuck with words. When Ryouko started telling Haruhi about her orders and they'd been made by enforcing them with data and she'd negated them, he muttered "Shit, shit and double shit." Before pulling his phone out of his pocket and dialling Koizumi's number waiting for him to pick up.

"Yes Kyon?"

"Koizumi, we kinda have a problem."

"Oh and what's that?" His voice still sounded smug, but you could hear a slight worried note as well.

"Well, Ryouko's back and talking to Haruhi, about data and stuff."

"Oh, oh dear."

"Is that all you can say! 'Oh dear' come and help you lazy bastard, bring Asahina-san as well if she's on the way." Haruhi turned to face Kyon and said only one word

"Explain."

Trying to keep calm and _not_ think of the universe blowing up, Kyon replied, "I can explain when the others get here, it'll probably be easier." 'Not to mention less likely to kill us all' he thought to himself.

They sat in a tense silence, in a somewhat surreal scene, the four of them sitting around the table with a cup of tea each, and Haruhi with the knife in her hand, Kyon's eyes flicking between it and Ryouko, and Yuki and Ryouko were just sitting there, sipping tea every so often, occasionally, Ryouko would open her mouth to start saying something before thinking better of it and closing her mouth. It was this that Koizumi and Mikuru walked into, Mikuru flinching slightly at the mood, and Koizumi just ratcheting his smile slightly wider.

"So what's happened here?" asked Koizumi.

"He was standing there staring while she was jumping at him with a knife, she was jumping to catch it, then really weird stuff happened." She said, pointing the knife at each person in turn, "Now I hope you two are going to help explain." Waving the knife vaguely towards them, making Mikuru flinch back and try and hide behind Kyon. Koizumi looked thoughtful for a minute before starting to speak.

"You remember the film we made for the school festival?" Haruhi glared at him for daring to even imply that she'd forget. Holding his hands up in surrender, Koizumi carried on "Kyon told you something didn't he?"

She nodded cautiously saying, "Yeah, he said you were an ESPer, Mikuru was a time traveller and Yuki was an alien. No idea how he thought that load of crap would convince me but-" before she was cut off by Koizumi.

"He was telling the truth." Haruhi's mouth hung open for a second.

"Wha- so you're really an ESPer?" Koizumi just nodded. "Prove it."

Koizumi winced, "Unfortunately, I can't, my abilities only work under certain conditions, although I may be able to show you soon." He finished, muttering the final part.

"And you're a time traveller?" she turned around slightly to stare hard at Mikuru.

"Uh, um, I can't say because classified information." She said.

Kyon interrupted, "Why not ask them to declassify this, they can't really not can they?" The time traveller nodded her head shakily and her eyes went out of focus for a couple of seconds.

"They said yes? U-um, that is to say, y-yes I'm a time traveller." She said, nodding her head like crazy.

"And Yuki-chan, you're an alien?"

"No." before she could turn and yell at Koizumi she carried on "I was a contact purpose humanoid interface, though you may have said alien."

"Wait, was."

"Yes."

"Why 'was'?" she asked, getting annoyed with evasive answers.

"The integrated data sentience entity dismissed me, I no longer have access or report to them."

"So. Out of all four of you, none of you but Kyon tried to tell me the truth, even though you KNEW I was looking for you?"

"It wasn't a case of not wanting to, my employers demanded absolute secrecy from you." Said Koizumi.

"Orders were to observe, no interference would be tolerated."

"I literally can't say anything normally, if I do then classified information happens." Mikuru said holding her head.

"See, the only reason they didn't tell you was their bosses wouldn't let them."

"They still should have tried, how can I trust them, they were all lying to me to get into my good graces. And you." She starts, turning to Kyon and glaring at him with barely restrained tears, "what does _your_ boss say?"

"Right now she's asking if she has any reason to trust her friends, and I'm begging her to because if she doesn't she might lose them."

"_I'm _your boss?" she asked mouth open. He nodded,

"I'm not sure if everything is true, but I've seen where Koizumi and the other ESPers fight, Asahina-san has taken me back in time, and I've seen proof Yuki's an interface. So please, believe them."

"Alright, but there's no secrets now, all of you have to accept _me_ as your boss like Kyon."

Yuki nodded and said "Permissions change indexed."

Koizumi, contrary to his usual mindless yes-man approach with Haruhi, thought for a minute before saying "I can do that."

Mikuru looked on the verge of tears "I-I can't, they won't let me." Then she looked up, "B-but they say I can follow Kyon-kun's orders" before shrinking where she was sitting as if expecting a slap or something "I-I'm only saying what they are!" Haruhi stared for a minute before saying

"Okay, I can trust him." Now she turned on Ryouko, "Why were you here, with a knife, threatening to stab a loyal member of the SOS brigade?" yelling at Ryouko.

"I was sent to dispatch Kyon-kun, I didn't really want to, I'm not bored anymore, but the IDSE bond data to the orders, it's impossible for an interface to disobey if they choose to do that, unless someone else contradicts them, then they cancel out."

"So why were you sent here to fight Kyon."

"I wasn't sent here to fight him, I was sent to violently hack him to pieces. And to get a reaction, Yuki Nagato was expelled because she unknowingly interfered in their plan to use your parent's deaths to their advantage by making lots of data so they couldn't observe it I was ordered to cause a reaction and obtain data, I do not know why their orders to Nagato-san to only observe didn't hold, perhaps it's because of _that_. Your actions have made me inaccessible to the IDSE so what happens next is up to you."

"Wait, what do you mean _I_ create data? I'm perfectly normal unfortunately."

Before Ryouko could say anything and possibly doom them, Kyon jumped in,

"Well, you're sort of like a different kind of ESPer, your powers aren't confined to where they fight, they're not the same either, and you have some data manipulation like the Nagato and Asakura, that's probably why you could change her orders." Haruhi just sat there, stock-still. When Koizumi opened his mouth, probably to say something like

"Maybe you should kiss her, after all, a kiss woke sleeping beauty." Kyon had walked over and was standing in front of her; he waved his hand in front of her face.

"Haruhi, you there?" suddenly she snapped out of it and managed to hit him with a flying hug, she was beyond happy, she'd found what she was looking for, even if they weren't quite what she expected, and more, she'd been told that _she_ was special. Kyon wasn't expecting it and fell to the ground like a sack of bricks. As she pulled herself off him, red faced at hugging him like that, she murmured to herself,

"I guess all that rubbish after the baseball was pointless." Before smiling widely, wondering what she'd meant, but thinking there'd been more than enough excitement for the night, he said nothing. Soon enough, everyone had gone to their houses, Ryouko's had been bought in cash and so hadn't been sold on, so it was just waiting for her. Kyon lay down in the futon, thankful that tomorrow, or was it today already? Wouldn't be a school day. His eyes opened to Haruhi shaking his shoulder.

"Hey Kyon, I can't sleep, can you tell me some more?" shaking his head to clear it, he looked around for a clock and saw his phone, which said it was three o'clock, he sighed that Haruhi would wake him so early, but he supposed he could understand her being excited.

"Alright, I'll tell you about the time Asakura tried to stab me for the first time, I'd found a note in my locker, saying to meet the writer in the classroom…" and Kyon told the story, chuckling inside at Haruhi's rapt attention, he had told his sister enough stories to be fairly good at it, Haruhi even gasped in all the right places.

**A/N So Haruhi's found out about the brigade, partly, tell me if I made any mistakes or there were things I could've done better. There's a shout out to Durandall's 'Kyon: Big Damn Hero' which is a good read. Also, this was my longest chapter so far. 'till next time.**


	8. Chapter 8

The IDSE's consciousness were mostly folded into the space between spaces to plan their next move, they had failed with sending the interface 'Ryouko Asakura', failure was not an option with their secondary plan, at least it was still acting through proxies, the IDSE disliked having to take such an overt role. Even if being behind proxies was because of their inability to meddle with time directly, they had experienced it, so they could not change what had happened for them, they were bound by logic. Humans, on the other hand, had no such bindings; they were creatures of illogicality, finding ways to change things and do things that should have been impossible, that was probably why the auto evolution possibility was born from the human race. They would have to _persuade_ the Time Agency to act on their behalf, taking some rather interesting ideas back and planting them in one of the IDSE's puppets. It was hard to say where the original idea came from, the time agency was using it from the past when it was 'discovered' but it wasn't discovered, it was brought back from the future, the only person that would know that the actual information came from the IDSE would be their chosen agent to take it back, everyone else would only know that they had been tasked with taking it back. Of course, the agent wouldn't tell anyone, he was going to find himself lacking some essential body parts like his brain after this. Of course, his brain would be used by the IDSE in order to make their process for creating interfaces better. After this was done, _then_ they would be able to almost directly interfere with the world and its people, through something similar to closed space, just not closed.

Mikuru's TPDD alerted her that there had been temporal activity on the local time-plane, but, in the same instant, a message came through from her superiors "Do not investigate, this is an order, level three." She paled, there were three levels of order. One was a generic order, more of a suggestion than anything else, disobeying it would have no more consequence than a message saying she should be careful around orders; level two could have consequences like demotion or probation; and level three, level three had the worst, they were generally orders that were vital to the stability of the time stream, breach a level three order and you'd be recalled, then, demolecularised, all that would be left would be a few wisps of elements. It wasn't as if she could even really investigate it anyway, it was someone leaving for one, so she couldn't really question the traveller, and anyone that might have known about them (if there was anyone even, time travellers generally kept that _particular_ fact a secret) they wouldn't answer her questions, she was just a high school student after all. The whole situation brought back memories of when she had first been deployed; nearly the exact same thing had happened, only with someone arriving, so maybe it was the same person. Not that it mattered, it probably wouldn't affect them, she hoped.

"Kyon! Open the god dammed door!" yelled his dad. Kyon opened the door and blinked at the sight that greeted him. His dad was standing there, sweating buckets, straining to hold up a huge box. Wordlessly, Kyon stepped to the side and watched him walk, although if he was honest, it looked more like waddling when he was trying to move the obviously heavy box without breaking things. Shrugging at the mysterious package (which Haruhi would probably have yelled 'penalty!' at before making him buy lunch.) he went back to the living room to make sure his little sister didn't steal the games console again. Mindless violence towards zombies seemed like a perfect way to relax for a while. About an hour later, he heard his dad yell down to him. As he climbed up the stairs high heard the sounds of his sister playing a game on the console, sighing, he thought that whatever his dad wanted, it'd better be worth it. He heard muffled swearing coming from his room, sighing and knowing that whatever his dad was doing was going to cause a lot of trouble for him, he opened the door. Kyon's dad was laid on the floor, head underneath the cupboard that had Kyon's TV on normally, trying to connect wires that lead to… actually, Kyon wasn't quite sure what it was; it stood about a meter tall, had a large round bottom and a clear plastic tube, with circuit boards that had lots of blinking lights and complicated things on them.

"Ummm, dad, what the hell is this thing?" asked Kyon, scratching the back of his head.

"Nishinomiya Tech's pride and joy! The Decadem!" Kyon gave his dad an unimpressed look.

"And it does what exactly?"

"It connects you to the Data Network of course!"

"Which is?" asked Kyon, wishing his dad would actually explain it properly.

"The Data Network, imagine a computer, no; the entire internet, but without the spam of course, with no physical attachment to this world. All the servers are virtual, all the information you could ever want is at the tips of your fingers, no hardware is needed beyond this machine right here and these little guys." At that, he pulled out a little pill bottle filled with, funnily enough, pills

"So drugs make you hallucinate and you're calling it technology?"

"No, no, of course not. From what I was told they have little machines in that interface with your brain and the Decadem, it lets you use it properly. It's the technological pinnacle of our time, the next step towards an amazing future... so if you drop or damage any of the parts, I will damage some of _your_ parts, clear?"

"Crystal. Why do you have one though?"

"Well, I _have_ been working on it for the past 3 years, this is the first working model in existence. Apparently, the CEO chose someone random from the team that was working on it to receive it; I guess we're really lucky; someone up there must like us. But, your mother would kill me if I kept it, I'd probably spend more time with it than her, your sister's not gone through puberty and the nanite's designer said he didn't know what would happen as the body changed radically. So you're the proud new owner of the Decadem."

Kyon was panicking; nanites were far too similar to what the IDSE gave its interfaces for comfort, he'd definitely have to get Yuki (or Ryouko now he thought about it, but he knew he could trust Yuki, he still wasn't quite sure about Ryouko) to look at it and tell him if it was just what his dad said.

"I think that's the first time you've explained something properly to me without me having to ask more than one question. But why have none of us heard about it from you before? You can never keep something exciting a secret."

He looked somewhat sheepish "Well, they had me sign a non disclosure agreement valid until it was complete. I'll leave you to get used to it, it can be used as a normal computer as well as entering the Data Network." Somehow, in the middle of the conversation, he had managed to finish setting the thing up. Then he just walked off.

"Hey! What do you mean entering the Data Network?" Kyon called after him, but he was just ignored. "All right, lets see what this thing is all about." And he reached out, tapping the power button on the front. It whirred to life, a wave of coloured light running up the machine.

"_Confirm voice patterns."_ came a synthesised voice, making Kyon nearly jump out of the seat he'd collapsed into.

"What in the… it talks?"

"_Voice patterns confirmed, identify."_ His actual name was rather long, and Sasaki had been right, it didn't fit him, so this was probably the first time ever, that he introduced himself with his hated nickname.

"Kyon."

"_Identified, welcome, Kyon."_ And the generic blue screen cleared to show a simple desktop like any other computer, apart from one icon in the bottom left of the screen, simply labelled 'Data Network'

"All right, a part from the whole freaky AI thing, this is pretty cool, now, lets see, does this thing have a manual." As he said it, a window popped up on the screen, the sheer amount of text making Kyon go slightly cross-eyed. After sifting through all the crap it basically boiled down to.

"This can be used as a normal computer essentially, with a keyboard and mouse. It can also be controlled by voice, and when the nanites are taken, thought. Also, it seemed that it could send you 'into' the Data Network." Which seemed a bit like the matrix to Kyon. After making his eyes hurt from the text, he told it to start the Data Network application; it just gave a window asking what he was looking for. Not being able to think of anything else to look for, Kyon said.

"Penguin habitats." He must've been spending more time around Haruhi than usual for that to be the first thing to pop into his head. He shook his head slightly as a penguin swooped across the screen, followed by information on their habitats. According to the manual, it checked the facts across every website with information about it on them, so got the most accurate result possible, although for one, Kyon didn't know how it was accessing the internet seeing as it wasn't plugged into it, and there was no wireless signal in their neighbourhood, another mystery to solve, Haruhi would be thrilled, and for two, how the hell could it do that, that kind of computing wouldn't be invented for years surely, it was beyond anything the human race should have been able to do.

**A/N Whoa, two chapters within as many days, I'm spoiling you guys. Also, never let it be said church isn't good for anything, I got around 500 words of this done in a church, apparently it was inspirational or some crap. Thanks for reading!**


	9. Chapter 9

Kyon was searching for his phone, he really didn't understand it, he'd had it ten minutes ago, how had he managed to lose it in ten minutes? Eventually, he looked in his pocket, he could kick himself, it had been lying in his pocket the entire time. Resisting the urge to punch the wall, he yanked it out and dialled Yuki's number from memory. The phone rang for about a minute before it was answered.

"Kyon? What is it?" came the voice from the phone.

"Huh, Haruhi?"

"Yeah, so what is it?"

"I've got something that I need to get Nagato's opinion on."

"Come over then you idiot, like either of us would stop you, if it's something you need Yuki to look at, then it's bound to be interesting, hurry up!" and then the phone went dead. That hadn't been what he was expecting, it was strange to hear Haruhi's voice on Yuki's phone, he had been listening carefully for Yuki's quiet voice, and then had his ear blasted off by Haruhi. Not exactly the most pleasant way to start your afternoon, but hey, at least there wasn't a time set, otherwise he'd be almost certain to get a penalty, he'd probably still manage it, but at least now there was hope.

The little nanites were snugly inside Kyon's pocket, even if you'd looked hard at them, they looked like ordinary pills, they were little pink ovals, and the only thing marking them as strange was the word 'NANITE' stamped on them. If a policeman had found him with them he would've probably dismissed them as a new brand of drug and taken him in to be questioned, after that he'd have been doubly screwed, in trouble with his mom for being brought back to the door by the police, and with his dad for losing really expensive technology. Thankfully, none of this happened so within twenty minutes of leaving his house, Kyon found himself at Yuki's apartment door. As he raised his hand to knock, Yuki opened the door and Kyon only just managed not to knock on Yuki's head with the door out of the way. Yuki stared at Kyon, her expression staying near exactly the same, but he thought he could see a questioning look in her eyes.

"Umm, my dad's brought something back from his job that I need you to have a look at." She nodded and moved out of the door and into the apartment, Kyon followed, kicking off his shoes as he went. He walked into the main room completely unprepared for Haruhi's _spectacular_ flying leap attack; sending him to the floor and Haruhi bouncing up and down slightly in excitement.

"What is it? What is it? Show me, show me!" Kyon tried fruitlessly to extricate himself from underneath her.

"And who in their right mind gave you caffeine or sugar? What the hell were they thinking?" muttered Kyon.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." Sing songed Haruhi, "_if_ whatever you've got is interesting; if not…" she let the sentence hang for a few seconds before yelling right next to his poor abused ear "PENALTY!" shaking his head to clear the ringing, he managed to get Haruhi off of him, though it was more likely she'd gotten bored and moved off. "So, whatcha got?" finally sitting up, Kyon reached into his pocket, and pulled out the little bottle with nanites in. Holding it up in front of her, he said.

"According to dad, his company have made an amazing computery thing, and to use it properly, you have to take these nanites. Thing is, I have no idea what they do." Yuki reached out and took them from him, looking at them intently; Haruhi was barely restraining herself, nanites, like those nanobots in some of her favourite animes!

"Cerebral to mechanical interface." Kyon just looked at her in confusion.

"Uh, what?"

"The nanites enter the blood stream through the small intestine, then travel to the brain stem, lodging there. When activated by the proper subroutine of the device, the nanites intercept motor signals to the nervous system and transmit them to the machine, the machine transmits back sensory data which is interpreted by the nanites and sent along relevant channels." Haruhi and Kyon were both staring at her, unprepared for the long stream of words. So Haruhi asked

"So they're like implants that let you go inside the computer?" Yuki's response was a wordless nod. "Awesome! Kyon we're all meeting at yours in an hour, I'll phone the others." She pulled out her phone and started scrolling through the contacts list "Come to think of it, I don't have Ryouko's number, how are we going to tell her." Having given up on stopping her, not that he tried hard in the first place, just a raised eyebrow as if to say.

"Do you really think this is a good idea." But then again, it might be fun, it was better than revising for hours or doing homework. So he just said. "She only lives up the corridor from here remember?"

"Great, go tell her. Then go back to yours, we'll be there soon." Shaking his head at the predictability of being sent as the messenger, he waved to Yuki and Haruhi before going to the door, slipping his shoes on, and walking down the hall towards Ryouko's apartment. She still scared him more than a little, she'd come at him with a knife dammit, more than once in fact, so he didn't really mind admitting that he was still scared of someone who had almost killed him, not that he'd ever let Haruhi know, she'd never let him live it down. Finally finding himself outside her door, he swallowed past the lump in his throat and knocked. After a few seconds, Ryouko opened the door, her head tilted in question.

"We're all meeting at mine in about an hour, if you want to come?" he was rather pleased that his voice hadn't shown any discomfort, even if he was tense and standing slightly to the side so he stood a chance of being able to jump away.

A wide smile made its way onto her face as she nodded "Sure, I'll be there." That smile made it very difficult to be cautious of her, after all, how could anyone with a smile like that be someone that had wanted to kill you before? Relaxing slightly, he waved and said

"See you then." And left for his house, adrenalin still pumping around his body.

An hour later found them all around Kyon's bedroom. Kyon was leaning against the drawers, Mikuru was at the other end of his bed, leaning against the wardrobe, Koizumi was standing next to the closed door, Yuki was next to Kyon, with her legs folded, Ryouko had had the cheek to steal his bed and was now lounging comfortably on it, while Haruhi stood in front of them all, next to the Decadem. Clearing her throat, she said

"Alright troops! Kyon has defied all expectations, he has something interesting, very interesting. Apparently it's partly alien technology, from the…" she searched for the name for a few seconds, before giving up and just saying "IDSE; we take these," and she held out the bottle of nanites, making Kyon check his pockets and find that she had indeed taken them. "and we can go into the Data Network, according to Kyon's dad, it has all the information you could ever want in there, but none of them are quite sure because they didn't have a chance to test it, he brought it here and gave it to Kyon, now, we're going to test it; now we can overload more than one world with fun! Yuki said it's safe." She handed one of the pills out to everyone, "Go on, take it." As one they put one in their mouths and swallowed, it felt rather weird to Kyon, because he knew what it did, his mind made him feel as if something was travelling through him, even if he wouldn't actually be able to feel it. "Now Kyon, tell it to take us in!" sighing, he said.

"Decadem, connect to Data Network." Just like the manual had said. What followed was a rather disconcerting feeling of openness, it felt like he knew everything about the world and was spread out over it all, watching everything and everyone. Just as quickly, the sensation was gone, and Kyon and the others were left disoriented standing. They looked around and thought it hadn't worked, they were still in Kyon's room. Then Mikuru looked down and squeaked, rather cutely in Kyon's opinion, in fear. She was looking at her own slumped form. They walked out of the house into the street, people walking past them didn't notice anything, some even walking through them, suddenly, Haruhi noticed a swirl in the air, making everything behind it go wavy, she bounded towards it and as she touched it, she vanished from their sight. Knowing that they should follow her, Kyon walked after her, with the others following behind, it felt strange to take the initiative for once. As he reached the area around it, he felt a mind numbing otherness around him, it was completely indescribable. He reached out and touched it, feeling the ground disappear from underneath him, being wrenched towards the destination, over a yawning chasm of stars, the strangeness of the transition making him fall at the other end, looking around, seeing Haruhi standing next to him, he said.

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

**A/N yes Kyon has watched the Wizard of Oz, even if I actually haven't, anyway, hoped you enjoyed the chapter, it took a while to write because of the exams I've got. I hope you lot are happy, you've made me late for school by making me stay here and upload this chapter. 'till next time!**


	10. Chapter 10

Kyon stood, breathing heavily, not a single creature was in sight, but he knew they were waiting out there, somewhere, probably behind one of the rocks that littered the landscape. There were too many, six people, fighting against hundreds of _things_. One decided to try and get a lucky shot in; it darted out, huge mouth opening, ready to take a huge chunk out of Kyon, before, somewhat normally for these kinds of situations, whenever his life was in danger _someone _managed to get in the way and save him, this time however, it was Haruhi. He couldn't expect a comforting word from her, or even plain indifference, no, she'd criticise him and then go kill more of them, watching them explode into golden motes.

"Use that gun properly dammit! Shoot them! Don't stare off into space!" she yelled at him as she shot the thing in its face before stalking after some of the others, they'd ripped her hair ribbon, and they were going to pay. Checking his gun he shook his head at the absurdity of what was happening, Mikuru was cowering behind him whimpering at every shot, Yuki was standing a while away, firing with a single minded determination at anything that so much as poked a hair from their hiding place, Ryouko was singing to herself with a huge smile on her face as she skipped around the creatures' defences, slashing at them with her trusty knife. He knew she was only doing it to freak him out, but still… it's not right watching someone smile and sing while killing things. Koizumi had abandoned his gun for more familiar territory, throwing intensely bright balls of red energy at them. How did they always get into situations like this? Although, Kyon did have to admit, and Haruhi felt the same for once, that it was kind of fun, almost like a really good video game, he was brought back from his reflections when he was careless and let one get too near him, letting out a hiss of pain, he turned on it and fired, straight through the eye. The transition had been weird; that was for sure, after picking himself up from his painful landing, he'd looked around. They were in a place like he'd never seen before, they were all standing on a huge piece of rock, completely flat apart from random pebbles lying around and where the rock seemingly flowed up to create boulders, most of them going up to chest level. As he'd moved, he'd felt his clothes shift strangely and looked down at himself. He was still wearing his normal clothes, but they were heavier and moved strangely. He'd knocked his fist against it and was surprised when it made the same sound as metal did. The others had found similar things. Now why did they have protection? Kyon wondered. He'd tensed when he heard the slight chink of metal on rock. The one good thing Haruhi and life and death situations are good for, quick reflexes. In almost exact unison, the SOS Brigade had turned to face the rock the sound had came from behind. They'd stood there staring, until, in a burst of speed, the thing that had made the noise flashed out from behind the rock, going straight for the still kneeling time traveller. It was huge; it would have been up to Kyon's shoulder if it were standing still. It looked like a wolf at first, until you looked closer. It had claws made of metal along with a metal lower jaw and a glowing red eye. Its claws whistled through the air towards the defenceless time traveller, who had barely looked up, when a shot rang out, the wolf thing was thrown sideways, golden particles drifting out of its wound on the shoulder, after being stared at for a few seconds, Yuki spoke.

"You all have weapons, it is impossible, even for an interface, to destroy this many entities, assistance, would be welcomed." Before finishing off the wolf with a shot to the head. She was right; they all had a basic pistol and dagger along with another weapon each.

"What is this, a role-playing game?" asked Kyon in exasperation before noticing what had been said. "Wait, there's more?" Yuki's response was a nod, and, apparently sensing the time for a dramatic entrance was then, hundreds of earth's predators, but _improved_ stepped out from behind the rocks and boulders. "Hey Yuki," he swallowed "What happens if we die here?"

"You die."

The creatures raced towards them as he cursed "Shit."

A lizard like thing flying towards his face brought him out of his pondering, and he shot it out of reflex. They all had cuts on their faces and arms, even Yuki, that's how fast they were. They seemed to stop being in one place and appear in another. In hindsight, Yuki was glad she had cheated before the massive wave. She had made sure that Kyon would survive, she'd planted movements and reflexes in his subconscious so even if he didn't know how to react, his body would. She had done the same for Mikuru and had tried to for Haruhi, but she wasn't sure if it had worked because of her powers. Koizumi didn't really need it but she gave him a boost anyway because these were faster than the celestials he was used to fighting. Even so, they barely kept up and took lots of little injuries, they'd whittled them down to one remaining creature when Haruhi walked after it, angry enough to make even the manliest of men scared for their lives.

"You. Wrecked. MY RIBBON!" she yelled at it before pulling out her weapon, a pair of billhooks making Kyon hope to God, Buddha, Krishna or whoever was listening really, that she didn't go on a rampage and kill them all. Unfortunately for Haruhi's anger, after a couple of slashes to the back of its neck, the cheetah like thing dissolved. Haruhi turned back around and looked at the others.

"What the hell was that!" Ryouko tilted her head at Haruhi,

"The computer club president was taken by one of them before, when you made your emblem."

"That was one of these." Koizumi gave a nod and said

"It was even bigger though, it was a cave cricket, thankfully we were able to destroy these before they could do anything. I'm not sure what one's doing here though, it isn't closed space or anything similar." Kyon had to point out the obvious problem.

"Well that's all good, but how do we get back? In case you didn't notice, the thing we came through is gone." This dampened Haruhi's excitement at hearing about the data entities so they looked around before Ryouko sauntered away towards a tall cylindrical tower that was bathed in a blue glow. When they reached it, everyone stared as Ryouko walked through the side of it, and a shiver of silver went through the blue glow, shrugging slightly, Haruhi said

"Come on then, let's go!"

Stepping inside, Kyon felt himself lifted towards the top of the tower and everything went white, as he opened his eyes from the bright light, he found himself in his room with the others. Haruhi was up like a shot.

"Right, we need to find what they were doing there!" before she yawned widely and finished with tomorrow, before falling over asleep. Ryouko picked her up and carolled

"Bye Kyon-kun!" as she left. After the others said their goodbyes, Kyon was left alone. He lay on his bed, not bothering to change and was asleep before his head hit the pillow. He didn't get a good night's sleep though, and he'd get a nasty surprise next morning when he found the hilts of the weapons he'd had in the Data Network digging into his kidneys."

**A/N not particularly happy with this, let me know through the reviews if you think it's good enough, or if I should re-write it… again. 'till next time!**


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